Pros
About a third of the people you meet will be genuinely incredible coworkers — the kind who go out of their way to help you, share advice, and offer constructive criticism when you need it. Those relationships were the best part of the job. It’s also a strong résumé booster; you’ll gain plenty of experience and talking points for interviews elsewhere, especially around leadership, ownership, and operating in fast-moving environments.
Cons
Everything at this company ultimately boils down to the fact that they primarily hire new grads because they’re cheap, and then compensate them with a pittance padded by great benefits. People are grateful to have a recognizable brand on their résumé in a terrible job market, and leadership relies on that dynamic. Anyone with real institutional knowledge eventually cycles out for better pay, taking their expertise with them and leaving behind no documentation or guidance for the next wave of new hires. The result is a workforce with very little long-term experience and a culture that feels more like a college club than an established company. The vibe is ex-jock competitiveness mixed with high-school popularity politics, and advancement depends far more on optics than on actual performance. You will not get promoted unless you work well beyond the expected 9–5. I regularly logged on at 7 or 8pm to answer emails, and plenty of coworkers were online doing the same. This heavy workload is framed as an “opportunity to prove yourself,” but really it’s just normalized overwork. It’s people online well into the night because they’re terrified of falling behind or being labeled “not committed.” My “manager” wasn’t actually managing me. A senior associate acted as my day-to-day lead, running weekly 1:1s and relaying my questions upward. This held together until I needed actual guidance on company policy to manage time off — something they weren’t trained or authorized to handle. This is standard here: senior associates with zero management training or knowledge of company practices get pushed into leadership roles out of necessity, and associates are left to sink or swim. Leadership then acts confused when progress is slow or inconsistent. Your experience depends almost entirely on your team. Two people in the same department can have completely opposite realities. When I joined, a thoughtful coworker warned me privately that there was essentially no documentation for anything and that new hires were expected to memorize constant, unannounced changes to the work. They were absolutely right. Things began deteriorating rapidly when company culture took a sharp nosedive. The CEO emailed everyone saying the upcoming year would be difficult and avoided every question about RIFFs. The next social event genuinely felt like listening to music on the Titanic as it sank. Suddenly people started quitting en masse, often for jobs paying at least 20k more. At one point, half my team had to be replaced. The culture also became noticeably pettier and more competitive. Work/life boundaries tightened in a performative way, and the “prove yourself” pressure intensified. At a spring work event outside of work hours, I experienced the mean-girl dynamic firsthand: I was with my team when a colleague from IT came over to say hi. She tried greeting them too, and everyone literally immediately walked away from us as soon as she did. Layoffs are frequent here, and while they’re obviously awful, I felt genuine relief when I no longer had to constantly worry about my job or deal with this environment. I’m grateful to be out.
